I completed my first Insanity routine today and I thought I would formulate my impressions in this brief review. As I’m sitting here typing this, sweat is dripping onto my keyboard. P90X never got me this soaked. This workout was non-stop cardio and I will no doubt benefit from it, if it doesn’t kill me. Overall, I give it 4.5 out of a possible 5 on my “bucket” scale. I didn’t give it a full 5 because it strikes me as kind of odd that you go through something like 10 minutes initially warming up before you stop to begin stretching. For someone of my vintage, that seems to be backwards.

So I went through the warmup, doing the same moves in three separate intervals. Then the stretch, which was a welcome break. With only about 23 minutes remaining, we move on to Circuit 1, with three rounds of each exercise. Each round is punctuated with a 30 second break, where you can do whatever you want: breathe, or drink, or towel off, or pass out. You only have time to do one, so choose wisely. I began “feeling it” when switching to the “Mountain Climbers” after the “Power Squats.” The legs weren’t excited about “climbing.” But I got through Circuit 1, keeping up fairly well with the DVD people, though at a slightly slower pace, which was more the result of trying to learn the form of each move.

Then on to Circuit 2. Here is where I had trouble. Basketball drills were fine. Tony taught me those in Plyo X. But the “Level One,” “Ski Abs” and “In and Outs” is where everything just started failing and I needed to stop, and take breaks. I could never keep up with any of those, but I did keep trying throughout. Circuit 2 ends with several Kenpo-type jabs. My arms felt like stuffed sausages. I was done. And so is this brief review.